ARC Review: How One Attempts to Chase Gravity by Nicole Campbell

HOW ONE ATTEMPTS TO CHASE GRAVITY
Author: Nicole Campbell (Thanks Nicole <3)
Series: Gem City #2
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Release Date: October 1st 2015

Book Length: 395 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace
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Ethan Fisher is kind of a badass- just ask him. The fact that he plays guitar and sings in a band only serves as fuel to the fire of his flirtatious nature. That is until he meets Courtney Ross, a sort of anxious, pixie-like cheerleader with a vocabulary much larger than his. Things would be perfect if she didn’t live eighteen hundred miles away. She shifts his perspective and steals his heart, but how long can she keep it? Find out what was behind all of those sexy smirks in What Comes of Eating Doughnuts With a Boy Who Plays Guitar, and what really went down the night of that fateful phone call.

College bound, Ethan knows he will run into Courtney eventually, and he is determined to have another chance to be the man she thought he was. If it is even possible for her to speak to him without throwing her coffee in his face. He’s willing to take his chances in hopes that the infatuation of their summer love can hold up in the real world. In a novel that is part insightful overlap, part delicious sequel, learn how this winding tale of love and heartbreak unfolds.

~ Review ~

I read and loved book one: What Comes of Eating Doughnuts With a Boy Who Plays Guitar but my only issue with it, (and I use that word lightly) was the ending. It was open-ended with the long awaited reunion of Courtney and Ethan; this left you as the reader with the ability to fill in the blanks for yourself. Now I’d like to think that I have a vivid imagination but as a huge soppy romantic and a lover of heart-throbs, I have this tendency to look too much into things, ha! So when I spoke to Nicole and she said she was writing a second book I was over the moon, then she told me it would be from Ethan’s POV; I nearly died, it was like she read my mind. Not only do we get Ethan’s POV but we also get to find out exactly what happened that dreadful night in book one.

We only ever got glimpses of Ethan before Courtney, when he or others would speak of his reputation as ‘The Fisher’, so it was a real eye opener to see things from his perspective. Then Courtney’s travels to Ohio for the summer and everything changes. It was great to revisit their relationship and experience the highs and lows through Ethan. However what I was really looking forward to was finding out what Ethan got up to when Courtney went home and it was just as heart breaking. It was definitely wasn’t something that Ethan went into lightly, you witnessed him struggle for a number of weeks but ultimately he was his own worst enemy and as a result lost Courtney.

Then we skip forward to the next year when they both attend the same college, things are tense and awkward but Ethan doesn’t give up, he’s determined to win Courtney back. It was kind of obvious that they would try again for a relationship, so I don’t feel like I’m spoiling anyone with this news. However what I loved about this was that their relationship wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows once they get back together. In order to maintain a real full-time relationship it was going to require some work, this would not be a repeat of the perfect summer romance. They’re not without their problems and neither is perfect which felt very realistic for them to have there occasional fight and make up.

Overall I loved this book, it was an excellent follow up which filled in all the gaps and answered all of my lingering questions. Nicole did an awesome job of a POV flip and also taking the story on from the original. I thoroughly enjoyed returning to Gem City and would recommend this to all my fellow romance lovers and I can't wait to see what Nicole comes up with next!